Victor did not want us to go.
Agent Reyes was even more emphatic.
“No.”
She said it over speakerphone from Luna’s dining room while Victor compared coordinates in Thomas’s notebook.
Luna stood beside him.
I stood opposite.
Reyes repeated herself.
“No civilian involvement.”
“My father is there,” I said.
“We don’t know that.”
“We know Thomas left intentionally after receiving Voss’s messages.”
“That does not authorize you to interfere with an active federal pursuit.”
“I’m not asking permission.”
“You should.”
Luna looked at me.
Not disagreement.
Assessment.
Reyes heard the silence.
“Ms. Sterling?”
Luna said, “I understand your position.”
That meant she had rejected it.
Victor groaned.
“You two deserve each other.”
Naomi looked up.
“That is becoming increasingly obvious.”
The old range was not a commercial shooting facility.
According to Thomas’s notebook, it had once belonged to a private government contractor outside Colorado Springs. The property closed more than twenty years earlier after ownership changed.
Victor found the corporate trail.
The final owner before abandonment was a shell company.
Its registered agent had worked for Graham Voss.
Agent Reyes immediately dispatched a team.
That should have been enough.
It wasn’t.
Because Thomas had a head start.
And because one note in his notebook made the location personal.
G.V. / T.B. — first cache.
Victor stared at the phrase.
“Cache of what?”
I already knew.
“Information.”
Thomas and Voss had served together.
Before Sterling.
Before Richard.
Before my father ran.
This was where they had first hidden whatever made Voss powerful.
Luna read over my shoulder.
“Maybe Thomas believes something there can destroy him.”
“Or Voss believes Thomas hid something.”
Victor said, “Either way, federal agents can handle it.”
My phone buzzed.
Mom.
I answered.
She did not say hello.
“Where is Thomas?”
Of all the conversations I wanted to have, this was not one.
“We’re trying to find him.”
“He left.”
“Yes.”
“He promised you he wouldn’t.”
I stared at Luna.
“How do you know that?”
“He promised me too.”
Of course.
Mom’s voice hardened.
“That man apparently learned nothing in twenty-two years.”
“I said something similar.”
“Good.”
“You’re safe?”
“I am surrounded by four armed strangers and one nurse who keeps trying to make me eat pudding.”
“That sounds reasonably secure.”
“Adam.”
“Yes.”
“Bring him back.”
The anger in her voice shook slightly.
“I’m going to try.”
“No.”
“What?”
“Don’t try.”
She took a breath.
“Do it.”
Then she hung up.
Luna watched me.
“Your mother is formidable.”
“You’ve met her.”
“I underestimated the cane.”
“So did Thomas.”
We left twenty minutes later.
Not secretly.
That was Victor’s condition.
Federal agents moved ahead.
Samira drove our vehicle.
Victor, despite his injury, came with us.
Naomi stayed behind under protection and threatened to resign if Luna attempted to relocate her again.
Derek called during the drive.
He had been moved to a secure hotel with Eleanor.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
Luna answered from the front passenger seat.
“Driving.”
“To where?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“That means somewhere dangerous.”
“That is not always true.”
“It is with you.”
I leaned toward the phone.
“Hi, Derek.”
“Adam, please explain to my sister that nearly being murdered twice should discourage fieldwork.”
“I have been attempting that for several days.”
“Poorly.”
“Correct.”
Derek lowered his voice.
“Celeste told investigators something.”
Luna sat straighter.
“What?”
“Voss kept a physical archive from before he worked for Father.”
“The range.”
Silence.
“How do you know?”
“We found it.”
“Then yes.”
“What’s there?”
“Celeste only heard him mention it once. He called it his insurance against Thomas.”
I looked at Luna.
“Against Thomas specifically?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t know.”
That made the old range even worse.
We reached Colorado Springs shortly before sunset.
Federal vehicles blocked the main road several miles from the property.
Agent Reyes met us herself.
She looked at Luna, then me.
“I distinctly remember saying no.”
Luna nodded.
“You did.”
Reyes stared.
“I don’t know whether rich people are uniquely difficult or whether your marriage has become some kind of competitive recklessness.”
“Adam is not rich,” Luna said.
“Thank you.”
“That was not a compliment.”
Reyes pointed toward a command vehicle.
“You stay there.”
I opened my mouth.
“No.”
I closed it.
Luna whispered, “She’s good.”
“Very.”
The range sat beyond a stretch of scrubland and pine.
Old satellite images showed several buildings.
Storage shed.
Administration office.
Underground bunker.
Target lanes carved into the hillside.
The property had no active utilities.
No registered residents.
Thermal imaging detected one heat source near the bunker.
One.
“Thomas?” I asked.
“Could be,” Reyes said.
“Voss?”
“Could be.”
“Both?”
“Possibly too close to distinguish.”
The tactical team moved.
We waited.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Then radio chatter changed.
Reyes’s expression hardened.
“What?”
She listened.
Then swore.
“What happened?” Luna asked.
“Decoy.”
The heat source was a portable heater attached to a timer.
No people.
But the bunker door had recently been opened.
The team found fresh tire tracks leading away through a secondary service road.
Voss—or Thomas—had anticipated us.
Reyes ordered units toward the service road.
Victor studied the old site map.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“There’s another structure.”
Reyes looked.
“Not on the current survey.”
“It appears on a 1998 plan.”
He pointed toward the hillside.
“Subsurface storage.”
Reyes called the tactical team.
Five minutes later, they found the entrance.
The steel hatch was unlocked.
Inside were empty shelves.
Dust.
Old military-style cases.
And one chair.
Someone had been sitting there recently.
On the wall, written in chalk, were two words.
HELLO, TOM.
My stomach tightened.
“He knew Thomas would come.”
Luna touched my arm.
Then an agent emerged carrying a box.
“Found this inside.”
Reyes opened it.
Photographs.
Hundreds.
People Voss had watched.
Politicians.
Executives.
Police officers.
Richard.
Derek.
Luna.
My family.
Thomas.
On the bottom sat an old cassette.
A label in Thomas’s handwriting.
Kandahar — Voss.
My father had been here before.
And he had hidden evidence against Voss decades ago.
Reyes held the cassette.
“We need to process this.”
Victor examined the box.
“There’s a false bottom.”
He was right.
Beneath the photographs was a folded map.
Marked route.
An X.
And another note.
If Graham comes back, he’ll go home.
No address.
Reyes frowned.
“Home meaning?”
I looked at Thomas’s handwriting.
“He didn’t mean Voss’s house.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Voss doesn’t think of houses as home.”
Luna understood before I finished.
“Information.”
“Yes.”
Where did Voss keep the thing he trusted most?
The first cache.
The original secrets.
Victor checked the map.
The X was near an abandoned mining settlement west of the range.
Federal units moved immediately.
This time Reyes forced us to remain behind.
We waited inside the command vehicle.
Luna sat across from me.
“What if Thomas isn’t there?”
“He will be somewhere.”
“That was not what I meant.”
“I know.”
She reached across.
Took my hand.
I looked down.
Her wedding ring caught the fluorescent light.
“You still wearing that?”
She looked at it.
“You put it back.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“I’m still married.”
“Contractually.”
“For now.”
I looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
She did not look away.
“It means if Voss vanished tonight and every legal problem disappeared tomorrow, I would still want to discuss rewriting the contract.”
My heart sped.
“What kind of revision?”
“One without an expiration date.”
For several seconds, the range, the agents, Voss, Thomas—everything receded.
“You realize we have terrible timing.”
“Yes.”
“Historically bad.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to require clearer language later.”
“You’re a copywriter. Draft it yourself.”
I smiled.
Then an explosion rolled across the distant hills.
The command vehicle windows shook.
Reyes’s radio erupted.
Everyone moved at once.
“What was that?”
She listened.
“Mine entrance.”
Luna stood.
“Thomas.”
Reyes held up a hand.
“Stay.”
Another burst of radio traffic.
One suspect vehicle.
Gunfire.
One injured.
Then a name.
“Bennett located.”
I was already at the door.
Reyes blocked me.
“He’s alive.”
I stopped.
“Where?”
“Near the mine entrance.”
“And Voss?”
“Unknown.”
“Was Thomas shot?”
Reyes listened.
“No. Injured in the blast. Conscious.”
My knees almost failed.
Luna grabbed my arm.
Reyes continued.
“He says Voss is inside the mine.”
Victor looked at the map.
“Only one entrance?”
Reyes shook her head.
“Old mines never have one entrance.”
Thomas had gone inside after Voss.
A tactical medic brought him out twenty minutes later.
Blood covered one side of his face from a cut near the temple.
I crossed the road before anyone stopped me.
He saw me.
His expression was not relieved.
It was guilty.
That made me angrier.
“You promised.”
“I know.”
“You left Mom.”
“I know.”
“You turned your phone off.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
He almost smiled.
“You’re right.”
I wanted to hit him.
Instead I hugged him.
Hard.
For one second, he froze.
Then his arms wrapped around me.
Twenty-two years collapsed into something I could not name.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
But something alive.
When we separated, I shoved him once in the shoulder.
“Ow.”
“Good.”
Luna approached.
Thomas looked at her.
“You came.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“You sound surprised.”
“I was hoping Adam married someone sensible.”
“You have met us both.”
“Fair.”
Reyes arrived.
“What happened inside?”
Thomas looked toward the mine.
“Voss wanted the Kandahar recording.”
“The cassette?”
“Yes.”
“What’s on it?”
Thomas’s face hardened.
“The first person he killed.”
Silence.
“He killed someone in Afghanistan?”
“Not combat.”
Thomas looked at me.
“We were intelligence contractors attached to a unit. A local interpreter discovered Voss selling information.”
“Selling what?”
“Names.”
Luna understood.
“Informants.”
“Yes.”
“He sold identities?”
“To whoever paid.”
My stomach turned.
“The interpreter confronted him.”
Thomas looked toward the hills.
“Voss killed him and staged it as insurgent violence.”
“And you knew.”
“I suspected.”
“Did you report it?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
“Voss had leverage on an officer.”
The beginning.
Secrets protecting secrets.
Thomas continued.
“I recorded him admitting enough to expose it.”
“The cassette.”
“Yes.”
“Why not release it?”
“I tried.”
“What stopped you?”
“The officer threatened to expose classified operations and put other people at risk.”
“So you hid it.”
“Yes.”
“And Voss knew.”
“He knew I had something. Not where.”
“Until now.”
Thomas nodded.
“He followed the trail.”
Reyes said, “Why return?”
“Because I believed the recording could finally put him away regardless of what happened with Sterling.”
“You should have told us.”
“Yes.”
“Instead you went alone.”
“Yes.”
Reyes looked disgusted.
“I’m beginning to understand your son.”
I almost laughed.
Then gunfire sounded from the mine.
Agents shouted.
Lights swung.
A figure appeared near a ventilation cut higher on the slope.
Running.
Voss.
Thomas saw him.
“He’s headed for the ridge.”
Federal agents pursued.
Voss disappeared among the rocks.
A helicopter spotlight swept over the hillside.
For several minutes, nothing.
Then a radio message.
Suspect reached vehicle.
A truck engine roared somewhere beyond the ridge.
Reyes swore.
Again.
Voss had escaped.
But this time he had left something behind.
Near the ventilation shaft, agents found a satchel.
Inside were ammunition, cash, passports, and a folder.
The folder contained one page.
A list.
Names.
Several crossed out.
Naomi.
Celeste.
Thomas.
Richard.
Others we did not recognize.
Luna’s name remained uncrossed.
So did mine.
At the bottom was one final name.
Caroline Bennett.
My mother.
Click here to continue reading: PART 19: The Name at the Bottom of Voss’s List Sent Us Back to Texas, Where My Mother Refused to Be Used as Leverage Again
The Morning My Boss Closed Her Office Door, Opened a File About My Life, and Made an Impossible Offer
Part 18 of 26
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